Fox Is Planning A Prequel To The Childhood Classic ‘The Sandlot’

There are few films that evoke as deep a feeling of nostalgia quite like The Sandlot. Even if you weren’t a baseball fan, The Sandlot managed to accurately distill the little details of childhood into one delightful film. After watching (and rewatching) it, it’s pretty common to feel the need to call your childhood buddies and thank your mom for encouraging you to just be a kid. It’s a film that means a lot to many people, and despite the fact that it spawned two terrible straight-to-video sequels, The Sandlot‘s legacy remains untarnished. For now! However, The Hollywood Reporter announced on Tuesday that Fox was planning a prequel film, so anything is possible.

(Sigh) First, the good: the original film’s director and writer David Mickey Evans, as well as new writer Austin Reynolds, will be writing this film, so hopefully, if anyone is concerned with The Sandlot‘s legacy, it’s him. The bad: nothing is known about the plot at this time outside of “prequel.” Since the main characters are all very young children in the original, it’s safe to assume that the film will cover the legend of the Beast and their next door neighbor, Mr. Mertle (played by James Earl Jones).

If they follow the original lore from the film, Hercules the dog was chained up and forgotten after being too good at guarding junkyards and Mr. Mertle lost his promising baseball career after a head injury rendered him blind. Uh, but in a lighthearted, family-friendly way? We’ll have to see how things shake out in the final version of the film, and keep perfecting how we pronounce “forever” in the meantime.